Anti-Trump Weekly Standard reportedly on its last legs

Trump Derangement Syndrome may turn out to be fatal for one of the most strident conservative publications opposing the president. Yesterday, CNN broke the story that the staff of the Weekly Standard have been warned:

The fate of The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine that has staked out a position as a publication on the right still critical of President Donald Trump, is uncertain, Editor-in-Chief Stephen Hayes told staff in a series of phone calls Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The magazine’s precarious position comes after its leadership spent months searching for a buyer, the people told CNN.

The people explained that The Weekly Standard’s leadership had butted heads with MediaDC, the current publisher of the magazine, and that the two parties had agreed to allow Hayes to search for a new owner.

However, MediaDC recently informed The Weekly Standard’s leadership that the company was no longer interested in a sale, the people said.

Apparently, no new owner willing to sustain losses in order to keep an anti-Trump conservative voice alive could be found.

The current owner of the Weekly Standard is MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media. MediaDC also owns the Examiner. Does anyone believe that this is a coincidence?

Clarity Media, announced that a sister publication, The Washington Examiner, would be expanding its footprint with a blown-out weekly conservative magazine with national distribution. That appeared to overlap with the Weekly Standard’s model, leaving staffers and supporters of the magazine to wonder what its fate would be.

Let me translate: the Weekly Standard has killed its brand by remaining anti-Trump while the conservative movement has lined up behind President Trump. Out with the Weekly Standard, in with the Weekly Examiner. The key question is how many – if any – of the anti-Trump staff from TWS will have jobs at the new weekly.

CNN sees the connection:

One of the people familiar with the matter told CNN that the Washington Examiner is expanding at the expense of The Weekly Standard.

Make no mistake: The Weekly Standard was the institutional legacy of Bill Kristol and Steve Hayes. By persisting in, even escalating in Kristol’s case, their hatred of Trump, they have sacrificed that legacy, if this plays out.